Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker has received a letter from the honourable member for Mackellar proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s failure to meet their election commitment to provide more Government accountability.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member who spoke previously, the shadow minister for trade, for making his pertinent and succinct comments on the attempted filibuster we had from the Minister for Trade. It was yet another example of the lack of accountability this government is prepared to submit itself to. In the filibuster that we had this afternoon from the Minister for Trade, he took 19½ minutes to tell us that we are going to have another inquiry—whoopty do—and once again got rid of the third MPI that was supposed to take place this week, and that means that Mr Rudd does not have to come in here and defend himself.

Ian Macfarlane (Groom, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We can have one tomorrow!

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of course! The bottom line is that Mr Rudd stood up and said—

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member should refer to people by their title or their electorate.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Mackellar.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Therefore the Prime Minister does not have to come into this chamber and defend himself. The Prime Minister has indeed set accountability as something he is not prepared to wear both at the public level of his government as a whole and at his private level, and I will deal with both of these issues. Let us start from the moment he was elected. He said the first thing he would do would be to recall parliament before Christmas and that the only holidays that his ministers would have would be Christmas Day and Boxing Day. So what did we get? He moved straight into Kirribilli House, had a lovely holiday and appointed a new cook.

That brings us to his second promise—that is, he was going to live in the Lodge. He was not going to live in Kirribilli House but, as I said, he moved in there straight away, had a lovely party for former prime ministers—and then what does he do? He appoints himself a new cook for Kirribilli House. He promised to stop the killing of whales. He did not even send the boat out early enough to take the photographs, and the whales are still being slaughtered. ‘Fail’ on the first three counts!

He then promised, on 11 July, that he would reduce grocery bills, he would reduce the cost of petrol, he would reduce interest rates—and on all three counts ‘fail’,  ‘fail’, ‘fail’. Interest rates continue to go up, petrol prices go up and grocery prices go up. On the fourth, he said he would relieve pressure from childcare expenses. Well, guess what: the only childcare relief that was afforded was to him and his personal household at the expense of the taxpayer. A public servant was designated to be a childcarer for his own child. Our multimillionaire Prime Minister, worth $20 million at least, has got a public servant taxpayer funded childcare person to look after his childcare requirements. No relief for the nurse who is working night shift and cannot get child care, no relief for the policeman who has got to work shift work and no relief for the poor mum or dad who is out there packing shelves at Coles—

Patrick Secker (Barker, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Barker is not in his seat. I cannot recognise him, and he is taking time away from his own speaker.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I said there was no relief for the poor mums and dads who might be single parents on the night shift packing shelves at Coles and Woolies; no childcare relief for them! But the Prime Minister, worth $20 million, can have a taxpayer funded person so he can have his child care. So when this is brought out in estimates, what has he got to say about that? He said, ‘Well, I’ll pay for the proportion of the time that this designated person spends minding my child.’ This is called apportionment. This is exactly what Phillip Smiles did when he was pursued by the Commissioner of Taxation on a political witch-hunt and prosecuted under the fraud provisions of the tax act, for saying that he was having an apportionment of some child care and some office work.

Where is the accountability for this new arrangement? Where is the accountability that shows what proportion of time is being used to care for the Prime Minister’s child and where is the job description of the work that this designated childcare person is doing which is not child care? Where is the contract that has been entered into? Where is the accountability at a personal level for this rich, clever Prime Minister? He is very clever in that he thought he could even be a little bit greedy by having this additional perk!

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As for you poor fellows over there, I don’t think there are many of you who took the wage cut; most of you got a wage rise.

At the same time as he is doing that, he has got a new perk for himself. Where is the accountability? This whole question of accountability brings me to the debate we had earlier in the chamber today, and that is the question of funding of political parties. This is the question of reform of the funding of political parties. And it just happens that I was reading some very interesting material dealing with a fund that was established by the now Prime Minister and the now Treasurer, a fund that they established in Queensland which is estimated to be worth about $100 million. It is within this fund that you will find there is about $20 million worth of shares in banks, about $2 million worth of shares in the Commonwealth Bank and $1.18 million worth of Suncorp shares. You will find that they have a conflict of interest.

When the Commonwealth Bank put its home loan interest rate up by more than the interest rate rise the Reserve Bank announced, the Treasurer said that the fund controlled by the Labor Party, which funds their election campaigns, benefited. They benefited as a result of government policy. The Treasurer went on to say: ‘You can change banks. I’ll make it easier for people to change where their home loan is.’ He made no mention of the fact that the ALP also had a margin loan with CommSec for $10 million. He made no mention of the fact that, every time there is a rise in interest rates, the ALP’s fund to get itself re-elected benefits. There was no mention of this at all.

In fact, if you go through the rather poor reporting requirements, you can do an estimate that shows the Labor Party is now the richest political party in any democratic country—if you put together the holdings of unions like the CFMEU and the Labor Party itself. Bear in mind that Labor Holdings, this fund established by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, donated $8 million to the campaign funds—as disclosed; we do not know how much else was paid. That is $8 million out of the $15 million they spent—as opposed to the $9 million the Liberal Party spent. There is an enormously rich fund which was established by the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. There is a conflict of interest. If there is to be true reform of electoral funding then this fund must be sold down.

Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: I think the member for Mackellar is reflecting on the Treasurer and the Prime Minister. If she wants to make allegations of improper conduct then she needs to move a substantive motion.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Mackellar is straying. I draw her back to the MPI before us.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am in fact talking about accountability. Accountability is fundamental to our system. The Prime Minister went to the election saying he was going to be better than everybody else. He was going to have higher transparency and higher accountability. But what we are getting is less accountability and less transparency, and we are seeing self-interest playing a major part as always.

We are debating the question of accountability in the context of what is in the Sydney papers today, and that is the utter corruption of the Labor Party and the New South Wales government. We are seeing this in the context of corruption, sex, bribery, ICAC and jobs for the boys—all the usual Labor Party practices that we got used to in previous governments. We heard from the Prime Minister today that he was going to be above this—that he was going to be better than them. What do we get? We get no transparency and, of course, we get the truncated sittings of the parliament. We get the Clayton’s Friday.

I can make this speech today knowing that the privilege of parliament will apply and that those people who might want to report on it will be covered by that privilege as well. If I had made this speech tomorrow, there may be no such privilege. Indeed, by curtailing what can be said in the parliament, you are curtailing the amount of accountability the government is prepared to present itself to face up to. The fact of the matter is that, when we come in here tomorrow, we can perhaps make speeches as benign and useless as the Minister for Trade made in 19½ minutes. He told us in 19½ minutes that he was going to establish another inquiry.

What should be happening tomorrow, as we have said, is that there should be a question time and there should be quorums called, established and verified. I would be most interested to hear the Chief Government Whip’s opinion on what happens when a quorum is called and the chair says, ‘I can’t hear you.’ Having had it drawn to their attention that there is no quorum, are we then disbanded—are we then in breach of the Constitution? We will see, won’t we? It is one of those policies that can best be called ‘the streaker’s defence’—it seemed like a good idea at the time.

The fact is that we are now seeing a parliament where, because of the filibuster technique—and I guess we can expect to see that every Thursday—proper matters of public importance will not be able to be debated. I go back to what I said right at the beginning. This important point of accountability is fundamental to our Westminster system. We have a Prime Minister who says that he is going to be better—better, certainly, than what is happening in New South Wales. But the Labor Party, together with its trade union movement, is now worth $1 billion, and there is no way in the world that that amount of money can be accumulated by any other political party.

Once again, on all 10 points that I have rated today, the Prime Minister has failed. He gets nought out of 10 on every issue that he promised he would deliver on. His first 100 days were going to be magnificent. They have about two days to go, I think, and the fact of the matter is that they have failed on every promise that was made—on the fundamental promises. The people believed that the government, by being elected, would bring down interest rates, bring down grocery prices, bring down petrol prices and provide relief for child care—all the things that matter to working families. In fact, the real policy that you are pursuing in your fight against inflation is to make working families welfare families. The unemployment pool is the only tool you have in your toolbox to fight the inflation about which you complain.

We discussed the NAIRU, didn’t we? The Treasurer, Mr Swan, did not know what that was. In fact, it was through the Howard government’s structural reforms to our economy that that came down. On the figures admitted to by Treasury, it came down from seven per cent, to 5.1 per cent and then to 4.7 per cent. With more reforms of the sort that we had planned, we could have gone past the 4.1 per cent at which unemployment rests today.

But your argument in favour of fighting inflation first means your only tool is to make working families, for whom you said you were concerned on all those other counts, welfare families. No wonder inflation was at an all-time low 16 years ago: we were coming off the back of the Paul Keating engineered recession. One million unemployed—you bet it forced inflation down! And you can copy it again. With a million unemployed again, you will have low inflation.

Debate interrupted.